1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an access control system comprised of a terminal, and a server arranged to receive an access request for access to a site on a network from the terminal and to access the site, and the present invention relates to an access control method in the access control system.
2. Related Background Art
Presently, quite a lot of contents browsable on the Internet include contents offensive to public order and decency. One of methods of controlling display of such contents is the method by the Platform for Internet Content Selection of W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). In this method, for example, a content creator sets harmful level information on a content created thereby, based on harmful levels as shown in the table of FIG. 11. Specific setting methods thereof include, for example, a method of defining and setting a label or labels such as the “PICS-Labels” on each web page.
There is another method of controlling access, based on a black list of URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of sites to which access is rejected, or based on a white list of only URLs of sites to which access is permitted.
The access control as described above is often performed by access control apparatus such as a proxy server. There are proposals on the technology of performing access control per individual to access contents, by such access control apparatus (e.g., reference is made to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-44441).